Sustainability of Printed and Flexible Hybrid Electronics

Study and establish a baseline model for determining the sustainability impact of Printed and Flexible Hybrid Electronics. One of the major features of PE/FHE is the ability to create electronics on natural materials products are made of. This inherently means that the products are difficult to disassemble but an opportunity exists to compare the complete lifecycle impact of PCBA/Silicon product manufacturing vs printed and flexible hybrid electronics.

Surgical Robotics-Precision Mechanics

Objective: Develop internal capability on surgical robotics articulation. Focus: motor control, degree of freedom in 2-axis, rotational speed, displacement velocity, force feedback. implement end effect grasper

Fluids and Mechanical Ingress Test System

Using Systems Engineering methodologies develop a system that can facilitate and automate testing to ensure compliance to the standard IEC 60529, Degrees of protection provided by enclosures (IP Code). The testing will include fluid ingress and mechanical/dust ingress assessments. Objective: Develop internal capability for consistently performing IEC 60529 standards compliance testing Deliverable: Develop and build a system or systems that conform to IEC 60529 and facilitate compliance with the product’s stated IP code

Robotic Arm With Force And Temperature Sensing

Combine a robotic arm with Sensors in order to control motion or grasper, limit force applied, and detect the temperature of items in the grasp of the robotic arm. It May be combined with software techniques for analyzing the data collected and responding with programmed patterns based on changes in temperature or force

IoT Implementation for a Harsh Temperature Monitoring System

Design an IoT based monitoring system by integrating software tools and hardware constructed to withstand high heat and rugged environments. The developed system will be used to monitor heat on large construction grade concrete crushers and associated bearings.

Wearable Electronics Design

Wearable Electronics: 1. Algorithm Development, Matlab ECG/EKG, Pulse Oximetry, Blood Pressure 2. Microcontroller and BLE firmware 3. Implement Algorithm in c/c++ code 4. Hardware development

NVIDIA Based System Integration

Using a Systems Engineering Design methodology the design will consist of algorithm development, GPU development, and evaluating and implementing AI, Deep Learning, Machine Learning on an NVIDIA evaluation board

Video Analytics at the Edge

Program a microcomputer, such as NVIDIA Jetson, to detect anomalous objects and/or movements. Machine learning algorithms based on deep neural networks will be implemented on the microcomputer to detect objects and movement in the environment. A statistical detection algorithm will be used to detect anomalies.

Collaborative Robotic Systems

Collaborative robots are systems designed to interact in a physical way with humans within a work environment. These systems can share a collaborative space where tasks and communication between robots and humans are effectively accomplished. Collaborative robots take operations to the next level. They work hand in hand with humans balancing the imperative for safety with the need for flexibility and productivity. In order to continue with robotic systems development completed in previous years, this project will use an already developed robotic platform and a new autonomous mobile donated to the department equipped with advanced sensors and an Nvidia Jetson Xavier ARM processor. The designed system will collaborate with the user in different areas such as surveillance, monitoring and tasks driven activities.

Multiple Mobile Robot Systems

Motivations for developing multi-robot system solutions are: 1. Task complexity is too high for a single robot to accomplish. 2. Building several resource-bounded robots is much easier than having a single powerful robot. 3. Multiple robots can solve "challenges" faster using parallelism. 4. The introduction of multiple robots increases robustness through redundancy. The project’s main goal is to develop a Multiple Robot System for navigation. Using different AI techniques robots will be able to get their optimized path completion during navigation. A successful way of structuring this navigation task deals with the issue of co-operative behavior among multiple mobile robots across this project. The project will use two autonomous mobile robots developed in prior Capstone Design Projects.

Wearable Electronics Printer system

Takshi’s lab is working on a devised method of printing copper on fabrics for the development of wearable electronics. To apply the new printing method, a printer system has to be designed. The motorized XYZ-stage is available. A microcontroller based closed-loop control system has to be designed to monitor the level of electric current and adjust the printing parameters to obtain a high quality circuit layout printed on fabrics.

Pollution Prediction in a City Due to Events

Pollution is leading environmental threat to health of people living in urban communities. Although clean air laws and regulations have improved the air quality in most large cities, it is still a problem for communities in specific areas whenever an event or specific season begins. To be more precise movements of humans increases or decreases pollution that can be due to driving or waste left behind them. What if we can provide a tool that can estimate and predict the pollution due to specific events? The objective of this project is to develop a tool that can help communities to understand the pollution footprint they are left behind after an event or daily activities in a dynamic real-time basis. The starting point is to gather pollution data available from sources such as satellite or pollution sensors. Additionally, build a small air quality sensor network (using Raspberry PI or other low cost kits) for monitoring.

Southeastcon 2023 Hardware Competition

Develop a robot that operates inside Duck Gardens (an imaginary theme park in Orlando) in which the roads are damaged or washed away due to hurricane. The Garden has Manatees and alligators’ pens which are separated but adjacent to each other. Your robot should be able to navigate the park feeding hungry manatees, feeding the alligators, moving ducks back to the pond, rebuilding statues, and placing remaining pieces in the recycling bins. Your robot may end their cleanup by starting the daily fireworks. https://attend.ieee.org/southeastcon-2023/wp-content/uploads/sites/392/IEEE-SoutheastCon-2023-Hardware-Competition-Rules-v1.4-Presentation.pdf

Implementation, Control, and Operation of Modular Multilevel Converter

The purpose of this project is to explore the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) technology, which has been used by the power industry for HVdc and STATCOM converters. The project has two main tasks: EMT simulation and PCB design. • The objective of the first task is to build a circuit and its switching and control system of a three-phase MMC converter for dc to three-phase ac conversion in EMT simulation environment. Students shall refer to USF SPS’ paper (Y. Ma, L. Fan and Z. Miao, "Integrated Control and Switching Strategy for a Grid-Connected Modular Multilevel Converter," IEEE PESGM 2015) and replicate circuit building, switching scheme design, and control design. • The second task is to realize single-phase dc to ac conversion through one-leg MMC bridge in PCB boards. This phase contains at least 4 modular switches (IGBT/ MOSFET), each using one PCB board. A team of 4 students will be allocated to work on: 1) EMT simulation modeling, 2) MMC modular PCB board design, 3) dSpace

Intelligent Measurement Unit Design for Smart Grids

There is growing need of understanding and making the smart power grids reliable and resilient. The project design purpose is to inspire students to explore measurement unit design for smart grid applications used in operation, control and protection, including phase-locked loop (PLL) for three-phase voltage magnitude, frequency and angle measurements, phasor measurement units (voltage phasor, current phasor, real/reactive power, and frequency), and fault current phasor estimation. Therefore, a proper starting point will be simulation for analog electronics circuits (Pspice or MATLAB SimScape Special Power Systems). Major components being analog like OpAmps, analog multipliers etc. The simulation shall be verified and evaluated by Dr. Miao prior to the hardware implementation. Further, experimental verification is required using discrete components and will be implemented incrementally within some iterations. The end goal is to have a working PCB that should be able to perform some c

Thermal management in Li batteries using supercapacitors

PolyMaterials APP (https://www.polymaterialsapp.com/) is offering a solution to the demand of energy storage by designing systems including supercapacitors. In this project, PolyMaterials is aiming to design an electronic circuit that can be used with supercapacitors as a supplementary energy storage to Li-batteries. The targeted system should include sensors to monitor the charge status and temperature of a Li battery and accordingly, through a smart algorithm (preferably a machine learning algorithm), balance the energy source between the battery and a supercapacitor. A compact circuit design and a power efficient system is expected at the end of the project.

CubeSat size ecosystem for growing plants in space

NASA is looking for a team of all US citizens to design a CubeSat size chamber for growing plants in space. In this project, a team from EE will work with a capstone team at ME to design a professional system. While the ME team will work on the mechanical design of the system (chamber design and irrigation), the EE team will design a plant health monitoring system with various sensors to measure chemicals in the environment and wirelessly transmit the data. The students have to submit a proposal to NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC) by September 9, 2022 (https://floridaspacegrant.org/program/ksc-senior-design-projects/). The Technical Mentor (Dr. Takshi) provides assistance in submitting the proposal. If the project is funded, NASA will award the project up to $2000 toward the project expenses.

GPS L1 Band Active Antenna

Develop a GPS L1 Band active antenna for aviation platforms. Design requirements are driven by the industry specification (DO-301). The project includes the design of a passive antenna supporting RHCP polarized operation at L1 (1575.42 MHz) and a low noise amplifier. The complete design should be validated against the requirements using antenna range and bench testing along with integration with a Collins GPS receiver. Mechanical Requirements: Correct form factor (must satisfy industry standard outline). Other Mechanical Requirements: Packaging of the antenna and testing the package for environmental factors such as humidity, vibration, etc. (optional and TBD based on group progress and information from Collins)

IVD Reagent Spotting on Chip System

Note: This project is cross-disciplinary and it will be carryout by students from the Medical Engineering and the Electrical Engineering Departments. There are several capabilities required that allows the production of prototype IVD cartridges, including: Fluidic elements of a cartridge such as channels, wells, heaters and optics; On chip reagents as liquid in an on-chip reservoir; on chip reagents in form of dried drop of reagent on the chip (spot); and on chip reagents as a dried bead of reagent (lyophilized). The capability that Jabil wants to enhance is the capability of depositing a drop of reagent onto a chip that when dried forms a spot. To achieve this goal a system will be developed that has the following functionality: Capable of programming via a user interface a drop volume and location and initiating dispensing. Capable of delivering a drop of reagent of 100 pL to 2.0 µL. Capable of positioning the receiving chip in XY dimensions to allow drop delivery within a a tolerance of ± 50 µm. Capable of delivering the spot on the target location on a 1” by 3” slide. Capable of independently controlling the temperature of the stored reagent and slide surface temperature. Capable of monitoring the size of the delivered drop.

Increase Security for Substation/assets

• Increasing autonomous security is an area of focus for FPL • Identifying and reporting location of observed human intrusion is imperative for eliminating unnecessary exposure to substations by the public & improve security at substation • Create embedded system that integrates sensed data from a motion detector to trigger systems to observe and report findings.

A small scale three-phase AC/DC bidirectional conversion

Design a small model of low voltage, low power, three-phase AC/DC bidirectional convertor. Based on the industry model ·      Design and build a small model of an AC/DC bidirectional convertor. The model could be used in the lab for education purpose to demonstrate: -       How to generate and control 3-phase AC output voltage from a DC source -       How to generate and control DC output voltage from a 3-phase AC source ·      Design and debug ·      Document the test results

Development of an Integrated Internet of Things (IoT) Healthcare System (Hardware & Data) via Model Based Systems Engineering Framework (MBSE) and Tools

According to the World Health Organization, Chronic diseases or Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 71% of all deaths globally [WHO 2021]. The world’s population is aging, and over 60 years humans are projected to accelerate in the coming decades [WHO 2019]. There is a necessity for alternative smart and conscious healthcare system through reliable and affordable care solutions. On the other hand, according to Gartner (technological research and consulting firm), the Digital Twin (DT) technology was in the top 10 technological trends for 2020. Also, MarketsandMarkets explain that the Digital Twin market is expected to grow. The proposal consists of carrying out the design, implantation, training and testing process of a Digital Twin to characterize the stages of lung diseases through spectroscopic analysis of the patient's breathing, audio and video signals correlated to the lung disease diagnostic, with the use of machine learning and AI

VNA Frequency Extender

Propose a VNA Frequency extender design to convert a 6 GHz Vector Network Analyzer (UVNA-63 or similar) to measure DUTs in a 5G band of interest centered at 28 GHz (25.5-29.5GHz). Build and characterize a frequency extender centered at 12GHz using Mini-Circuits connectorized components. Present measured results that prove the concept of your design.

Field Testing and Deployment of Harsh Environment Sensor Monitoring Platform

This project builds on efforts started by previous Capstone Teams. The goal of this project is to take a hardware and software platform based on the ESP32 and do field testing and upgrades based on real-world experience. The platform will need to gather data from different sensor technologies such as temperature strain gauges, sheer gauges, voltage, flow rates and load sensors. This platform will then send data collected to the cloud via Wi-Fi, Cellular or Satellite. The module must be able to run in an environment where power is available as well as run on battery or potentially solar. The team will use Eagle CAD to perform updates to a SMD PCB and build new revisions. The team will also use Visual Studio Code and Platform IO to create new versions of the firmware based on identified needs. The end goal of this project will be to deploying a hardware and software solution for: 1. Monitoring of infrastructure such as bridges or public utilities 2. Marine/Vessel Monitoring